Australia's 18 to 24 year-olds most at risk of violence

Young Australians between the ages of 18 and 24 were the most likely group to have experienced some form of violence last year, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The new report, the Personal Safety Survey, collected information from men and women aged 18 years and over about their experience of violence since the age of 15.

According to the definition of the report, violence is defined as any incident involving the occurrence, attempt or threat of either physical or sexual assault experienced by a person since the age of 15. It includes that physical assault, physical threat, sexual assault and sexual threat.

The report found that over one in 10 young women, and nearly one in four young men had experienced some form of violence during 2012.

According to the figures of the ABS, both men and women were more likely to have experienced physical violence than sexual violence. However, sexual violence was four times more common for women than men: 19 percent of women had experienced sexual violence since the age of 15 compared to 4.5 percent of men.

It also found that since the age of 15, men were more likely to have experienced violence from a stranger than by someone they knew, while the reverse was true for women.

"Women were more likely than men to have experienced violence by a partner since the age of 15: 17 percent of women and 5.3 percent of men had experienced violence by a partner. There's been no significant change in the proportion of men or women who experienced partner violence since 2005," Fiona Blackshaw from the ABS said.

"When looking at a person's most recent incident of physical assault by a male, the most likely location for a woman to be physically assaulted by a male was in their home, the most common place for men to be physically assaulted by a male was at a place of entertainment or recreation," she added.

In addition, the report also found that both men and women were unlikely to report their most recent incident of physical assault by a male to the police.

And the ABS confirmed that this is the first time that it has collected information on the prevalence of emotional abuse by a partner -- this includes things like psychological and financial abuse. The ABS found that since the age of 15, women were more likely than men to have experienced emotional abuse by a partner: 25 percent of women compared to 14 percent of men.